Dry run guinea pigs

Before taking your pitch to your target investors it is important to practice your story for real. There are different guinea pigs available, recognise their strengths and weaknesses:

Your co-founder is blinded by the idea, just like you

Your parents probably do not really understand the concept but love everything you do

The speech coach really understands articulation, stance, and story flow, but will not spot that huge gaping hole in the business model

The friend of a friend of a friend who is an angel investor will suggest that you should make a comparison to that company featured in TechCrunch 2 months ago

The friend of a friend who owes a favor and is a VC does not really have time to go into the idea and will suggest to beef up the competitive analysis a bit, unfortunately he does not invest in businesses that are this early, come back in 6 months...

The casual friend who wants to be friendly but does not know you very well, does not have the courage to say what she really thinks

The management consultant sees problems everywhere and will suggest more analysis and risk mitigation